For the other social musings click here.
Growing up, one of the first philosophies you hear is that you can’t live without help of a professional and that you’re dependent on compartmentalized help. For example; “You need a teacher to learn X, you can’t do that on your own.” When I got into media development for the web this was not taught in school, I learned it on my own and have been in this line of work for over ten years. Now it’s being taught in the same institutions that shunned me for getting into it at that time. By now I have lost track of the people telling me that I’ll never amount to anything, that digital art and computers will have a destructive impact on my creativity, that the web is just a niche and art has no place on it, that I’m just some eccentric alternative anti-establishment artist playing with computers, etc… (note; I have no issue with the establishment, it’s the established that trouble me.). At his point proving people wrong seems to have become my pastime.
I’ve been fighting with such opposition to what I do and am all my life.
Because of my parents work, I pretty much grew up in a car. Having lived in many countries, and lived under a variety of cultures (all with their own philosophies and superstitions) I’ve given up on taking the advice of people or professionals telling me how to live or act and that I can’t do what I put my heart to. I believe that such arguments are not true. That you can do and learn anything you want, and believing the opposite is simply out of laziness, because pro-activeness means less time infront of the TV, or one enjoys the attention they get by complaining about the state of their life. A human has no limit to what they can understand and comprehend. If one’s mind is put to it anything is possible, the only obstacle is self doubt or self pity. The fact that we believe we cannot do or accomplish could be viewed as the core flaw in today’s individual. Self doubt is what is hindering us from being great. For whatever reason we’ve chosen to distract ourselves with doubt instead of pro-activeness, and for whatever reason society seems to be built on discouraging people by flaunting about superiors who (in the end) often are less qualified or talented than you. Machiavellians, compartmentalized creative departments, celebrity worship… All accomplishing takes is motivation and passion. You could call it the “curse of the gods”. We can do anything but we choose to cripple ourselves by listening to those telling us we can’t do it. Its almost like this is a planet of gods and they’re all telling each-other that there’s no use in trying, and one would be an idiot for attempting, so all that’s left to do is consume. This appears to be the problem with humans they can’t get over their self-induced issues so they choose to sit down and tell each-other it’s not possible. I often think that perhaps the point of this life is to overcome the self. Discovering and mastering ourselves seems to be a life-long struggle. Instead of facing ourselves we prefer distractions. Drowning in-front of the TV or spending extensive amounts of time shopping. It appears that we pound ourselves with so much “modern noise” that we never really get comfortable with ourselves or have a chance to know ourselves. If you’re not comfortable with yourself then how will you ever be with other people? I often think this is why many relationships fail. Another puzzling thing is that true individuals who choose to stand unique are met with great amounts of prejudice and are often regarded as something threatening.
“Geek” or “looser” appear to have become a popular terms to apply to today’s creative individual.
A typical conversation would be:
“What are you going to do this weekend”
“I’m going to read my book and install _____ on my server and play around with my new database set up.”
“Man, you’re a looser.”
“Ok, what are you going to do?”
“Sit at home, watch tv, and fuck women.”
“You’re a winner, woo!”
The concept of a healthy individual seems to be one who goes to a bar, finds someone with mutual interests (these are usually petty like music or their favorite tissue brand), they go home fuck each-others brains out, wake up with a hangover and feeling guilty, talk about how much their life sucks and resume that the next weekend. How can you’re life suck if you’ve taken no measure in changing it? Once you’ve tried absolutely every trick in the book to change it THEN it sucks. Most people haven’t actually gotten past opening the book.
People seem to get so empty, they reach to their hundred-year-ago five generations back ethnicity. For example, touting about a heritage of 0.00001% Cherokee. Does knowing that make you cope more with having to be yourself? I’m led to believe there’s a cut-off line somewhere, where genetics and DNA stopped caring. There are no pure whatever. Why remember your roots from 100 years back, how about starting to understand yourself? It feels as if that’s another way of keeping yourself distracted.
“It’s important to know where you’re from.”
“Dude, its the 21st century. By now everyone has fucked everyone on such a global scale that culture is a soup, and the genes are confused.”
People struggle to get distracted with the strangest trivialities. The biggest scandal at some of the offices I go to is “You put Windows on your Mac!?”, “You don’t eat meat!?”, “You don’t have TV!?”… Such petty issues appear to turn into a bigger controversy than Watergate.
Case in point – I believe that the first step to achieving a dream is to say “fuck the world” and to do it anyway.
…Thanks for listening!
ahhhh!!! Just love it.